


Chaos and Eternal Night

by finch (afinch)



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Post-Canon, dreaming of reality, dual world
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-08 22:29:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5515613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afinch/pseuds/finch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Atal liked to go down to the space where there was a hole in the world, and watch. </p><p>Sometimes she dreamt lurid dreams that almost seemed real. She dreamt of two people falling, one male and one female, and of an ethereal being with them, who looked almost like her kind, and nothing like them at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chaos and Eternal Night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [HopefulNebula](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HopefulNebula/gifts).



_“And that must end us, that must be our cure:_  
_To be no more. Sad cure! For who would lose,_  
_Though full of pain, this intellectual being,_  
_Those thoughts that wander through eternity,_  
_To perish, rather, swallowed up and lost_  
_In the wide womb of uncreated night_  
_Devoid of sense and motion?”_  
         -John Milton, Paradise Lost 

Atal liked to go down to the space where there was a hole in the world, and watch. 

Sometimes she dreamt lurid dreams that almost seemed real. She dreamt of two Mary-like people falling, one male and one female, and of an ethereal being with them, who looked almost like her kind, and nothing like them at all.

She liked to go down to the space where there was a hole in the world after dreaming such a dream. It soothed her, to see the relief of the individuals as they passed through and sprinkled into Dust. It made the uneasiness inside her a little better. The dream always filled her with unease. There was something very wrong about the dream, something wrong about the existence of these people falling.

The others in her village knew she was plagued by what had happened to them, the visit from the other-worlders. They knew she had formed a bond with Mary, they knew she was sad to see Mary and the children go. They knew she had bad dreams after. Atal didn't share her bad dreams with them, it hardly seemed fair. They wouldn't understand. She didn't understand. 

Sometimes the man and woman whispered to each other, of how tired they were, how hungry, how they yearned for it to be over. The ethereal being never said anything to them; it couldn't fall any faster or slower than they, so it was bound to them, unwillingly, for as long as it would take to fall. They ignored it, they were repulsed by it, they were just as bound to it as it was to them. 

Once the woman had told the man, "We did it for Lyra," and Atal had woken with a start. She went and stood by the little opening until the sun was high in the sky. Watching fireworks of Dust wasn't soothing enough, so she decided to make the area a bit more inviting for the return to Dust. The wood was easy enough to do on her own, and she dragged the logs together to make a low wall. 

She was careful not to fall through the hole herself; nobody had forbidden her from it, but she didn't know what would happen. There were so many yearning to be free that Atal didn't want to deny them, she didn't want to hurt them, though she did not know if they could be hurt.

Even with the wall up, Atal was still unsettled. The man and woman had been falling for months now, if not years. How could they still be alive? The ethereal being was eternal - or as close to that as one could get - Atal knew it was alive even if it did not speak or move. She was scared one day it would. But the status of the man and woman, who knew Lyra and were falling for her, scared her even more. She wished she could ask Mary, or an elder in her village.

But there was no one who could know the answer to the question.

The man and woman gave no more clues, though Atal wished they would. She wished they would to go away. She wished not to be the one to bear witness to their existence. She wished for answers to know why there needed to be a witness. But the man and woman only whispered the same words to each other as they twisted against an impossible darkness. They were tired, they were cold, they were hungry. There was nothing anyone could do. 

It was the seedpods that moved things along. The Tualapi had attacked, rolling the seedpods into the river. Atal had run to the hole, to make sure the Tualapi did not ruin that. One gave chase, which was a shock to Atal. Usually they never ventured that far inland. This Tualapi knew where he was going, screeching after Atal. She hid in the forest and watched as his great wings beat the logs that she had carefully stacked. Atal could hear the screams from the other side of the world. It puzzled the Tualapi.

He noticed a seedpod nearby, and carefully rolled it into the hole, where Atal could, from where she was, hear it bounding across rock. There were more screams. The Tualapi wanted to go in the hole in the world, but also was wary of it. Without realising what she was doing, Atal was bounding across the plain and crashing hard into the Tualapi. There was a sharp crack as her trunk hit the wings of the Tualapi. Her trunk was crushed, but the abruptness of Atal's attack paid off; he fell backwards into the other world below, and Atal was unable to stop herself from falling after him. There was nowhere for them to go, but down into the other world, sliding down rocks, and off a ledge into a black abyss, following the seedpod. 

She understood then what the two in her dream whispered about. She did not understand why they had stayed alive, but she understood. They had fallen into this abyss - or one just like it - to save Dust. Now she was doing the same. She wished she could have understood sooner, wished she could have granted them the absolution they were still desperately seeking. Maybe her absolution, late as it was, would set them free. Now she would join them, falling forever. Unlike them, she did not need absolution; she did not need anyone to set her free. She had done it for all of them, the beings from the other world that came into her own and sparkled into Dust. She had saved them, sacrificed herself to an unknown eternity. She had sacrificed her own return to Dust. 

Sometimes she dreamt of three beings falling forever, one of them eternally silent. 

Now, after the battle with the Tualapi, falling forever, she dreams something different. She dreams of the seedpod, spinning down the endless blackness. She dreams of it being ripped to shreds by the darkness, screaming as it goes. She dreams until the seedpod has been consumed by the darkness, until her dream is nothing but the blackness that stretches on forever and ever. She dreams until she is the darkness herself, until she is -

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to spoke and primeideal for the respective beta.
> 
> Title is likewise from Paradise Lost.


End file.
